Soda's Son
by gloryblastit
Summary: It's 1984 and Ponyboy is selling the house. Soda and his son head to Oklahoma, memories are stirred up.
1. Default Chapter

……………………………………….California

…………………………………………1984

"Kevin!" I was outside by the pool. It was just a little pool, no diving board or nothing. I'd asked my dad if we could drain the pool so I could skateboard in it. That would be totally awesome. He said no.

"Kevin!" That was my dad yelling for me. I wouldn't be able to ignore him much longer.

"What?"

"Did you do your homework?" He stood in the doorway, the double glass doors that lead out to the pool. He was in his work uniform, the grease stained coveralls of a mechanic.

"Yeah," I said, and flipped my hair out of my eyes. He gave me that look that said, 'you're full of shit'. I sighed.

"No,"

"C'mon, get it done,"

I went inside reluctantly. I wanted to go skateboarding on the boardwalk with my friends, I wanted to go swimming, I wanted to sit here and do nothing.

Later that night most of my homework was done and I was supposed to be sleeping. But my parents were talking in the living room. Since my room was right next to the living room I could hear them perfectly.

"Soda, what is it?" My mom said, her voice soft and lilting with concern. He fiddled with something, sounded like paper.

"It's a letter from Ponyboy,"

My dad sounded upset. Ponyboy was my uncle who lived in Oklahoma. Ponyboy, that's a weird name, right? But my dad's name, his real name, was Sodapop. I guess it was my grandfather who named them those totally bizarre names. Thank God I had a normal name like Kevin.

They had another brother, too, Darrel. But he died when I was a little kid, heart attack. My grandparents died, too, before I was born. Car accident. And that is basically all I know about my dad's family. It's all shrouded in mystery. I'd only ever met Ponyboy once, when he came up to visit us like four years ago. I was ten then.

"What's wrong?" My mom said. I laid perfectly still, trying to hear everything.

"It's…he's selling the house,"

"So?" My mom said, but nice, not sarcastic.

"It's just that, I grew up there, you know? My parents…Darry…all our frinds were always there. That house was the last place I saw Dally and Johnny…" Wow. My dad sounded so sad. I'd never heard of Dally and Johnny. He didn't talk about Oklahoma much.

"But Soda, you haven't been there in 14 years, since Kevin was born. Just that once when Darry died. What does it matter if he sells it or not?"

"I know, I know. I guess I just like to think I could go back, if I wanted to,"

They were quiet. My window was open and a nice breeze came in and I could smell the flowers. Southern California, it was paradise. I always felt bad for my dad growing up in Oklahoma with all those hicks, no ocean, no swimming pools, tornadoes and shit.

"He wants me to go there, see if I want anything before he sells it,"

"Are you gonna go?" my mom said.

"Yeah. I think so, yeah. I have to see that house one more time,"

Quiet again. I remembered Ponyboy. He kinda looked like my dad but he was quiet and serious. I never quite knew what to say to him.

"Soda, you should take Kevin,"

"I don't know…"

"He's never been to Oklahoma. It would be nice for him to see where you grew up. It's his history, too,"

I could imagine my dad, the look he gets when my mom changes his mind.

"You're right. Yeah. He should go. I'll tell him in the morning,"

Next morning I was chewing on toast, my eyes still half closed despite the sun streaming through the window, shining on the pool. Morning wasn't a good time for me.

"Kevin, we're going to Oklahoma," my dad said, sipping his coffee.

"I know. Ponyboy is selling the house,"

"Eavesdropping again?" my dad said, but he wasn't mad.

"It's not eavesdropping when you two are so loud. Hey, are we leaving this morning?"

My dad laughed, shook his head.

"Good try. After school,"

I figured.

The day at school dragged. After school my friends had their skateboards, ready to go.

"Kevin, you coming?" They said.

"No, I'm going to Oklahoma with my dad,"

"Oklahoma?" they said, laughing, "what the hell is in Oklahoma?"

"I don't know. I guess nothing,"


	2. ch2

I took the bus home, my skateboard useless under my arm. The sun was so bright and I noticed the fine film of dirt on the bus windows.

My dad told me to go home and pack and then wait for him. He knew my tendency to take off.

"Hi, sweetie," my mom said. She was watching a soap opera.

"Hey," I said, tossing the skateboard into the corner and heading to my room. I threw a bunch of clothes into my suitcase and slammed it shut. Packing done.

I looked out my window for our car. It wasn't there.

"Mom," I said, looking through the refrigerator for a snack, "did you know dad's brothers?" I found an apple and bit into it.

My mom lowered the t.v. and turned to look at me.

"No. They were at the wedding but Darry, he was older than your dad, died shortly after. Ponyboy came to visit once. I didn't really know them at all."

My mom had blond hair and freckles from all the sun. In the wedding picture of my parents she doesn't look much different except her hair was longer. My dad's hair was longer, too.

"What were you, a hippie?" I'd say to him.

"Not exactly," he'd answer.

My dad came home, kissed my mom's cheek, ruffled my hair.

"Let me change real quick, then we'll go," he said.

In the car my dad put on some oldies music and I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, c'mon," I said. I put on a song that came out in this decade, at least.

I felt the air change in Arizona, dry desert air. Through Arizona, New Mexico, endlessly flipping through the radio stations. During one stretch all that would come in was some maniacal Bible thumper ranting about the end of the world.

"Kevin! Just leave it!" Dad snapped at me somewhere along a desert road in New Mexico as I flipped past some Elvis song.

"Okay, okay,"

As we got closer to Oklahoma my dad got a little quieter, tapped out the beats of the songs on the steering wheel and dash board.

"Want anything?" he said, pulling up to a little one pump gas station and convenience store. The New Mexico sky was so blue behind it that it hurt my eyes.

"Yeah, a coke," He nodded at me and went inside. I looked at the newspapers in that glass thing, the headline something about a gay disease, AIDS, and some financial shit.

He came back with my coke and we headed off again. As we edged into Oklahoma he lit up a cigarette.

"What are you doing?" I said. I'd never seen him smoke before. He looked guiltily at me.

"Uh, it just helps with tension," he took a drag and I squinted my eyes at him, I could almost see what he looked like as a teenager.

We headed down red dirt roads and the closer we got to Tulsa the less we had to look at the maps. The maps had started out as neatly folded smooth squares in the glovebox but had ended up as crazily creased jumbles of paper.

We got there late, streetlights were on. The neighborhood looked kind of shabby but the house we pulled up to had a neat lawn and a neat little fence. I saw a light on inside and the flicker of a t.v.

"This is it," dad said.

"Let's go," I said, jumping out of the car. I felt so stiff. We weren't halfway up the walk when the front door opened and someone stood in the doorway.

"Hey, y'all," Ponyboy.

The house was only a little smaller than ours, but no pool of course, and no cable.

"What!" I said, flipping through five channels. Five!

"Kevin," dad said in a low warning voice.

"Yeah, but dad, no cable! I mean jeez…"

"Deal with it,"

I sighed, flopped on the couch and watched 'Three's Company'. Five channels, God.

My dad and Ponyboy sat at the kitchen table with beers. I had a coke. Ponyboy lit his third cigarette since we got here.

They talked a little, asked how things were. Each gave evasive answers. I looked over at them from the corner of my eye. They looked alike, I thought. But maybe Ponyboy looked older, even though I knew he was two or three years younger than my dad.


	3. ch3

Next morning I woke up late, stiff from the couch.

"Good morning," Ponyboy said coolly, sipping a coffee and smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table.

"Morning," I said and stumbled to the kitchen. I looked around for my dad but I knew he wasn't here, I could sense it.

I watched uncle Ponyboy smoke, taking deep drags and squinting his eyes against the smoke. I felt the same way around him that I did at 10, awkward. I couldn't think of anything to say.

"How's your mom?" he said, not really looking at me. I shrugged.

"Okay,"

"And school?" he ground out the cigarette in a clean ashtray and raised the coffee cup to his lips. I hated this torturous conversation with strangers who were also relatives.

"Fine. Uh, where's dad?"

"He went to get some boxes. He'll be back soon,"

I looked out the window. The houses had a certain flimsy look and the lawns were more weeds and dirt than grass.

"Hey!" Dad came in, folded cardboard boxes under one arm, donuts and breakfast sandwiches in a bag cradled with the other arm.

I brightened and so did Ponyboy. We both felt off the hook of having to talk to each other.

…………………………………………………………. …………………

Dismally I flipped through the five channels on the T.V. And those five were staticky. This sucked.

"So, have you heard from Two bit?" My dad said to Ponyboy. They were both smoking.

"No. Last I heard he was in the slammer for robbing a convenience store," My dad looked glum.

"How about Steve?"

"I see him once in a while," Ponyboy blew a perfect smoke ring. We all watched it lose it's shape and fade away.

"Evie's been dragging him to court, he hasn't been paying child support,"

My dad sighed and looked real sad all of a sudden.

"I miss Darry," he said, his voice breaking, and he swallowed hard. Ponyboy nodded slightly.

"And Dally, and Johnny, and mom and dad," he put his head down on his arms on the table. Ponyboy gently touched his shoulder.

"I know,"

………………….……………..……………………

I was in the attic. The day was overcast and it looked like it was gonna rain any second.

I had a box and could take anything I wanted. The house was still. Uncle Ponyboy and dad went to the cemetery. I guess they had enough people to visit there.

It looked like junk. It smelled weird, like mothballs and decay, old paper chewed up by maggots.

Old pictures in silver oval frames. Smiling middle aged people who vaguely resembled Ponyboy and dad, and me. Must be my grandparents. Pictures of babies and toddlers in the 50's, black and white. Dad, Ponyboy, and their brother, Darry.

Mantle clocks that didn't work, clothes that were so out of style the style threatened to come back. Broken chairs, a bird cage with a newspaper from 1968 lining the bottom.

A box filled with yearbooks. One with uncle Darry where he won the "boy of the year". How corny. I looked at him in the picture. A clean cut, square jawed football player. Another year book with dad as a sophmore, laughing in every picture he was in, and he was in a lot of them. Damn he was handsome. He quit school, though, I knew that. Mom made him go get his G.E.D. a couple of years ago because without it they'd pay him less. I'd never seen him more miserable than when he was studying for that test.

Underneath the yearbooks there was a composition book. The cover had Ponyboy's full name printed very carefully…Ponyboy Curtis, English Comp, 1966. 1966. How old was he then? 14. Huh. My age.

I flipped through it and it was full, the whole composition book. Damn. Did uncle Ponyboy write that much at 14? I flipped to the first page, he had titled it, "The Outsiders".

I dusted off a chair that wasn't broken and sat down to read, suddenly very curious about what would have taken all these pages to say.


	4. ch4

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house…" It was weird. It was like I could hear Ponyboy's voice in my head. I kept reading and barely noticed the light fading from the sky because I'd already put the light on. A single bare bulb that hung from a string over my head.

Ponyboy's quiet voice took me deeper and deeper into the world he had lived in, my dad lived in.

I knew my grandparents died when my dad was like 15 or 16, I had known that. But I'd never really thought about it. How would it be if my parents died in a car accident now?

And this soc/greaser thing. It was brutal. I mean, we're not the richest family around, especially in Southern California where movie stars live. Some of the richest people in the world live there. But it's more of a "live and let live" kind of thing. Sure, kids like to have brand name stuff but even if you're poor you can save up and buy it. Just mow lawns or baby sit or something.

I read until my eyes felt dry and scratchy and Ponyboy and dad came home, my dad calling up to me, "Kevin! You okay?"

"Yeah, dad!"

But I couldn't stop. It was better than a photo album, disconnected moments, the colors fading, old clothes and old hair styles, people leaning against cars from earlier decades. The teenagers your parents used to be. This was like living that time with uncle Ponyboy.

My dad wasn't like a main character, really. He was mentioned, of course. Ponyboy described him pretty well. I blinked, surprised that they'd been that close, surprised that they weren't still. Because they weren't. There was a distance, in miles and in something else. They were strangers now, but I read the part where Ponyboy was remembering the socs jumping him after the movies and my dad slung an arm across his neck, trying to tell him how Darry feels. They weren't always strangers.

And Darry. Uncle Darry. Working like crazy to support his brothers, always tense and strung out. Clogs the arteries. No wonder he died of a heart attack so young.

But the story wasn't so focused on my dad and my uncle Darry, they were there but…It was really about Ponyboy and his friend Johnny Cade. This was the Johnny dad said he missed. I knew he must have died, the sad way my dad said he missed him. When I was reading the thing it was like I got to know Johnny.

Ponyboy was a pretty good writer, the way he described everything, making you see it and feel it.

I knew the type of kid Johnny was, the quiet kid who got hit at home. I knew kids like this but I wasn't really friends with them, my friends all had parents like mine, kind of laid back and easy going.

After the movie when they were talking in that vacant lot and Johnny said, "I can't take much more. I'll kill myself or something.", it was like I totally understood even though my life was like a thousand times better than this kid's life had been.

And something was going to happen. There was suspense. I kept reading to find out.

If it was today they'd probably yank Johnny outa that house and stick him in a foster home. But maybe not. Lots of kids just put up with it, keep their mouths shut.

"Kevin! What the hell are you doing up there?" My dad, a little bit of panic in his voice.


	5. ch5

I came downstairs, dusty and grimy from the attic. Dad and Ponyboy were at the table, an open pizza box in front of them. Gold beers in glasses by their hands. I reached for my dad's and sipped it, then took a slice of pizza.

"Get lost up there?" Dad said.

"Yeah. I had to follow bread crumbs to get out,"

I noticed an easier feeling between dad and uncle Ponyboy, some sort of easing of the tension. I looked at Ponyboy in a new way.

"Well, what was so interesting up there?" Dad said. I shrugged. I was reluctant to tell them about the essay I'd found, I wanted to keep it for myself.

"Nothing really,"

I was chewing on my pizza when someone rapped on the screen door and came in before anyone said come in.

"Hey, man, I heard you were in town," It was a guy about my dad's age with receding brown hair, faded tattoos up both arms, grease stained jeans. He smiled and I noticed he had teeth missing.

My dad looked at him blankly for a half second then broke into a wide grin.

"Steve!"

They shook hands and hugged, kind of slapping each other on the back type of hug. Ponyboy smiled mildly at this reunion. I remembered in his essay he said he hadn't really liked Steve, but that was when he was 14. I wondered if he still felt the same.

I'd pictured Steve Randle in my head when I was reading 'The Outsiders' and now here he was, aged instantly 18 years.

His eyes flicked over to me.

"Is this your kid?" he said to my dad and he nodded, ruffled my hair.

"Yep. That's Kevin,"

"Hi, Kevin," Steve had sharp little eyes, and he looked at me kind of funny, like he couldn't believe my dad had a kid as old as me or maybe that I looked a lot like my dad did when he was younger.

Steve tried to convince dad to go out drinking with him or something. He didn't seem to want to go because of me but Steve wore him down.

"Don't worry, Soda. I'll stay with him," Ponyboy said, and dad smiled his movie star grin and took off.

I wanted to go back to the attic, finish reading the essay but I felt sort of obliged to stay and talk to uncle Ponyboy.

"So, um, why are you selling the house?" I said, taking another slice of pizza.

He shrugged, lit up a cigarette.

"Don't know. It's just time, I guess. There's nothing here for me now,"

"Where are you going to move to?" I said, licking the pizza sauce from my fingers, wondering if uncle Ponyboy would let me have a beer.

He shrugged and in that gesture it reminded me of how I'd pictured him when I was reading the thing.

"New York, maybe. Syracuse. There's a college up there with a pretty good writing program. I used to write,"

"I know," I said, before thinking.

"You do?" he said, looking at me curiously.

"Um, yeah, well, dad's mentioned you used to write, and draw, and read books and stuff," In fact he had not mentioned that, he never talked about his family. But Ponyboy seemed to believe me.

"Oh," He ground out the cigarette and stared out the window into the blackness.


	6. ch6

I snuck back upstairs and finished uncle Ponyboy's essay. I sat kind of slack jawed, amazed. It was a bit disorienting because I'd never really pictured my dad and uncle as teenagers, my age. And for a dizzy second I realized that I'd be as old as they are one day, maybe.

I heard the racket of my dad coming home with Steve, heard them greet Ponyboy and wake him up. I came downstairs.

"Hey, kid," Steve said, smiling at me with his gap toothed grin. My eyes trailed over the fading tattoos on his arms.

My dad was drunk, I could tell by the glassy look of his eyes, the slight slur to his speech.

"Give the kid a beer," Steve called to my dad as he grabbed beers from the fridge. He shook his head no.

They were all smoking. Before this trip I'd never seen my dad smoke.

"Hey, dad?" I said, sitting next to him on the couch. Ponyboy was across from us, looking sleepy, his hair in sleep corkscrews. He held his beer in both hands.

"Yeah?" Dad peered at me, blew the smoke away from me.

"Who are Johnny and Dally?"

"Johnny and Dally?" He looked at me quizzically.

"Yeah. At home you told mom you miss Johnny and Dally. Who were they?"

His eyes got the distant look and I could almost feel him remembering.

"Friends of ours. Good friends. They were like brothers," He looked down, called to Ponyboy and Steve for help.

"Kevin wants to know about Johnny and Dally,"

Steve bounced over, sat on the edge of the couch, leaned drunkenly onto my dad.

"Who should we tell him about first?" Steve said. Ponyboy frowned.

"Soda, you never told him about them, us, any of it?"

I was alert, like a cat around dogs. Ponyboy was looking at my dad with sharp disappointment. Dad was beginning to look guilty, it gathered slowly, like that weird tension before a thunder storm.

"I, uh, well I haven't…"

It wasn't going to be a fight, an argument, or anything. But there was like this buried fight between them.

Steve either didn't notice or chose not to, took a long swallow of his beer, and set it down with some finality on the coffee table.

"Alright, kid, I'll tell you about Johnny first," Steve said, sitting next to me.

"Johnny…that kid had the blackest hair, and he put more grease in it than anyone," Steve laughed, remembering, touched his own receding hair.

"And that ratty old jean jacket he wore all the time? 'Member?" Ponyboy said, smiling wistfully, and took a small sip from his bottle.

"He was so quiet. It was almost torture sometimes get tin' him to talk," My dad said, smiling a little, too.

"You would of liked him, Kevin," Ponyboy said.


	7. Chapter 7

"And Dally," Steve said, smiling ruefully, shaking his head.

"He was tough, he was…" My dad stroked his chin, looked into the distance, back beyond the years.

"Dangerous," Ponyboy added.

"'Member that time he knocked out that kid's teeth at the drug store? Because he wanted Dal to move?" Dad laughed and so did Steve. I stared at the places his teeth should have been.

"You know, it's funny," Steve said, and he looked almost sad, "back then I thought things wouldn't change, that we'd all stick together," He gave a harsh laugh and looked at my dad from the corners of his eyes, and almost seemed to blame him. Ponyboy, too, gave my dad a thinly veiled dirty look.

Dad stared ahead, lit a cigarette, then stood up.

"I don't know about you two. We're not teenagers anymore. I have a wife, a son, a life in California. This, this is just a trip down memory lane for me, and it ain't that great,"

Ponyboy looked at dad with a sort of angry shock.

"Yeah, Soda, you just upped and left. I had thought I could count on you…"

"Ponyboy! What's here, huh? Sandy left me cause she got knocked up, mom and dad are dead, Johnny and Dally and Darry are all dead! This place just depresses me so fucking much…"

I stared from one to the next to the next. My dad, still so handsome, and usually smiling and joking, easy going. But he was upset now, nearly crying. His wheat blond hair hanging over his forehead, tears in his eyes. I was real close to him, and my mom, maybe since I was an only child. Sometimes dad was more like a friend than a dad.

Ponyboy's look of anger was softening, and he laid a hand on my dad's arm. Uncle Ponyboy, the uncle I didn't even know. My mom had a brother, uncle Jimmy, and he was always around. Bought me stuff for my birthday, took me places, he was there at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But Ponyboy was a stranger to me.

And Steve who I'd never even heard of until I read uncle Ponyboy's essay. Steve ran a nervous hand through his hair.

"Look, I don't like coming here, it's all loss and, and…I just had to come see the house one last time,"

That was that. Things quieted down and they drank more beer, smoked more cigarettes, and fell asleep.

In the morning I stumbled into the kitchen, looking for some juice or something.

"Good morning,"

I jumped, and saw Ponyboy in the corner of the kitchen clutching a coffee mug.

"God, Ponyboy! You want me to have a heart attack?"

"Sorry," he smiled, and looked at me funny.

"What?"

"You know, you look a lot like your dad used to. It's almost like looking at the past," Wistful. I'd found some orange juice and poured a glass. It seemed like Ponyboy kind of lived in the past.

"I read it," I admitted when we were sitting at the table. Dad and Steve were still asleep.

"Read what?"

"Your essay, you know, 'The Outsiders'?"

"'The Outsiders'? Oh…oh yeah. Holy shit, that thing's still up there?"

I nodded, took a long swallow of juice. Dad and Steve looked more passed out than asleep. Mouths open, hair plastered to the sides of their heads, still in their clothes.

"I feel like I know Johnny and Dally, and you," I said. Ponyboy nodded, swallowed hard, and took a cigarette from his pack on the table, his last.

"I still miss them. Especially Johnny,"


	8. Chapter 8

"Why'd my dad leave?" I said, and traced the pattern on the table cloth with my finger. I kind of felt like I shouldn't ask, like it wasn't my business.

"I don't know," he said, kind of sad. But like it was an old sadness that he'd gotten used to.

"What happened? I mean, when he left?" After reading the essay he wrote I looked at Ponyboy like a storyteller, and there was a story with my dad leaving. It was a story I didn't know.

He glanced over at my dad, still sleeping.

"I'll tell you, but let's go for a walk, okay?" I agreed, and it would be better that way. Dad wouldn't wake up, and then I'd never know. Being here, meeting Ponyboy and Steve, reading 'The Outsiders', I realized how much I really didn't know about my dad, how much he had never told me.

We left quietly, holding the screen door so it wouldn't slam. The day was bright, hurt my eyes.

"See that house?" Ponyboy said, pointing. I looked. A small square house with a new front porch, new wood that looked out of place next to the old wood. Flower boxes. An old guy sitting on the front porch smoking a cigar. Ponyboy waved and the old guy waved back.

"That's Johnny's house," I stared, mouth open. I knew Johnny had lived in this neighborhood but it seemed strange to see his house.

"Do his parents still live there?"

"Yeah. That's his dad. He's kind of mellowed over the years,"

We started walking, and I tried to imagine my dad growing up here, getting into fights, making out with girls.

"Well, where my essay ends, Soda was all upset over Sandy. He'd really loved her. He would have married her. But she got pregnant and it wasn't Soda's. He was so crazy in love with her that he would have married her anyway,"

We walked, and then Ponyboy pointed out another house. This one was newer than most of the others, a ranch, probably built in the 70's.

"See that house?" I nodded.

"That's where the vacant lot was. They built that house around '75 I think. '76 maybe. Progress," He laughed.

"So Sandy went to Florida to have the baby and Soda just moped around for a long time. I thought he'd never get over it. And in a way he didn't,"

We were coming up on a park. With a fountain.

"Is that the park?" I said. Ponyboy nodded. It was like having a tour of a book I'd read, and it was weird. In the essay he'd said that the park would have made a pretty cool hangout, but his gang liked the vacant lot and Shepard's gang liked the alleys somewhere or other, and that the park was left to lovers and little kids.

I noticed a skate ramp in the park and smiled. Ponyboy noticed me noticing and he smiled ,too.

"That's new," he said.

I kicked a rock, and Ponyboy pulled out a cigarette.

"Hey, can I have one?" He shrugged, handed me one.

"Don't tell your dad I let you smoke. He'd skin me,"

I lit it and nodded at him, I wouldn't tell. Dad would skin me, or at least yell, or tell my mother.

"So in the essay I wrote I was in 10th grade then, Johnny was, too, even though he was two years older. I got moved up in grade school, and Johnny got left back in 9th grade, or 10th. Soda had been a junior when he dropped out of school, and the year I was a junior was the year he moped about Sandy,"

We kept walking, leaving the neighborhood behind. I liked Ponyboy's voice, his way of speaking. Kind of like my dad, but calmer. You could hear it in his voice, you could hear how many books he's read.

"So the next year when I was a senior, Darry got a better job. A job at some company, and I had a part time job, too. So we didn't need Soda's income like we did before. And that's when he left. Just upped and left, left us a note. I still remember it. It said, 'Sorry guys but I can't stay here anymore. I'll go crazy. I'll miss you guys but I just can't stay. Love, Sodapop,' "

We walked, and he was quiet, remembering.


	9. Chapter 9

"I suppose it might have been different," Ponyboy said after awhile, and I was a little surprised when he started speaking again, "it might have been different if our parents hadn't died like that, and then that whole thing with Johnny and Dally…"

"We clung to each other, we were all we had,"

It was such a bright day, and the sun made the road look like a faded blue. I dropped the cigarette and stepped on it.

"It wasn't fair to expect Soda to stay, he's right," Ponyboy said, and shaded his eyes as he looked back toward the new house on the vacant lot, Johnny's house, his house.

"But Darry and I did stay, and sorta blamed Soda for leaving. Then a few years later Darry died…"

We walked along, and I kicked at little stones. In the distance I saw a cemetery, gray stones all in rows.

"Have you ever heard the saying, 'After the first death there is no other,'?" Ponyboy said, turning to me. I noticed his eyes were greenish gray but looked more green in the bright sunlight. I shook my head no. I'd never heard that.

"Well, that wasn't true for me," He'd started walking again and I followed. The cemetery got closer.

"Each death was so traumatic, so tragic, I'd barely made sense of one when another happened. So sudden, like a mack truck slamming into you," He hit his open palm with his fist, and I was struck by how differently my dad and Ponyboy dealt with these tragedies. My dad ran away, escaped. Ponyboy stayed and wallowed in it.

"I'm not stupid," he said, and we'd reached the cemetery, now the white fence that bordered it, the neat green grass, the glassy gray stones with their chiseled inscriptions, "I know I was pushing people away. I couldn't let myself get close to anyone. I knew what I was doing and why, but I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop it,"

In the cemetery we walked past gravestones from the 80's, late 70's, and stopped at one from 1972. Darrel Curtis, devoted son, brother, and friend.

"I was really depressed for a long time," he said, running his finger along the top of Darry's gravestone, "barely eating, barely sleeping, just barely surviving. Every breath was painful," We'd started walking again, past the late 60's.

"I'd started thinking maybe Johnny and Dally were the lucky ones,"

We stopped again. The stone said, "Dallas Winston, 1949 to 1966" Ponyboy traced the D slowly with his index finger.

"Some uncle or second cousin or someone bought the stone and didn't put an inscription," Ponyboy said, "I'm not sure it would have been that easy," he laughed a little, and from reading "The Outsiders" I got what he meant. It wasn't easy to sum up Dallas Winston.

"You know, I've come to like Dally a lot more than I did when he was alive,"

We walked on, not far from Dally's grave was Johnny's. "Johnny Cade, 1950 to 1966".

"Johnny's parents bought that stone. He's lucky he got even that," Ponyboy said, and for a second sounded like a sour 14 year old, but then he shook his head.

"Naw, man, that ain't fair. His parents have changed since he died,"

"Wasn't his name John?" I said, thinking the gravestone is a place for formality.

"What?"

"Johnny. Wasn't his real name John or Jonathan?"

"Oh. Yeah, it was John, but no one ever called him that,"

I shrugged. Noticed how these three graves were tended while the others had weeds, dead flowers.

"So now I'm 32 and what have I got to show for it? No relationship, no career, just a dead end job. Still in the same lousy neighborhood," Ponyboy folded his arms on top of Johnny's gravestone and put his head down, the way little kids do in school.


	10. Chapter 10

His shoulders started to shake and he may have been crying. I stared. I didn't know what to do with this. I really hardly knew him, hadn't known before a few days ago about all these tragedies piled on top of him.

But it was all so long ago! Darry died in '72, 12 years ago. Johnny and Dally in '66, 18 years ago, his parents nearly 20 years ago now.

He stood up. He hadn't been crying but it was close. He took a shuddery deep breath.

"Um, are you alright?" I said cautiously, wishing my dad was here, or I was somewhere else.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine,"

We walked on, the sun shining off the faces of the polished stones. Away from 1966 and toward 1965.

His parents' stones, my grandparents. Side by side, my grandfather born in 1925, my grandmother in '26. How old would they be now? I figured it quick in my head. 58 and 59. Not so old. Not so old at all.

Ponyboy stared at these stones but didn't touch them as I noticed he'd touched the others. Impossible to say what he was thinking. Maybe that these two deaths kick started his bad luck, set his life on this bleaker hopeless course.

"What were they like?" I said, staring at the names and dates, remembering the pictures I'd seen of them up in the attic.

He smiled, kind of a bittersweet smile.

"They were…God, sometimes it's like I can hardly remember them. Any of them. They're all I think about but they're so faded. It's like now, I can only remember remembering them, I can't really remember at all,"

I squinted up at the sun, the bones of my grandparents, or the dust of the bones, somewhere under my feet. How long did it take bones to turn into dust?

I looked down but could still see the sun like a phantom, burned onto my retina. My dad had found the better way. He didn't live with relics and ghosts like Ponyboy did. He didn't live with shadows, reflections of reflections.

It occurred to me suddenly in an unnerving burst of clarity, that maybe I had to help Ponyboy. Maybe my dad couldn't do it, because they'd been too close once, or they were still mad at each other or whatever. But Ponyboy really had no ties to me. I was a stranger. And I'd read his essay "The Outsiders". I understood it on a different level than my dad did, maybe.

But I groaned inside, shrinking from the chore. I was 14, out on a little vacation with my dad. I didn't exactly plan on becoming a pseudo psychoanalyst for wayward uncles.

The dust beneath me seemed to shake, and I could feel my grandparents' little twists of DNA vibrating in my cells. 'Help him' they'd say if they still could. So I nodded, to them and to myself. It was hard work pleasing the dead.

"Um, uncle Ponyboy?"

"Yeah?" His voice was slow, dreamy. I looked at the lines on his thin face, lines my dad didn't have. I heaved a sigh and started again.

"Uncle Ponyboy, do you still have that letter you got from Johnny, you know, the one from the book?"

He nodded and turned to me, his look getting sharper. I knew he had it.

"Well, uh, what did Johnny say in it?"

Ponyboy cleared his throat. Scanned the sky for passing planes. He knew damn well what it said. I'd drag him back to life if it killed me.


End file.
